


Freeway 1996: Who exactly is the Wolf?

by Sparkle 94 (acpendra)



Category: Freeway 1996, Little Red Riding Hood - All Media Types
Genre: Bad ass little red riding hood, Bob Wolverton is a creep, Freeway 1996 - Freeform, Other, Smarter then people think, Vanessa is flawed and human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:49:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21698020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acpendra/pseuds/Sparkle%2094
Summary: An essay on the underated modern adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood known as Freeway.
Kudos: 2





	Freeway 1996: Who exactly is the Wolf?

I have a confession to make, Little Red Riding hood is my favorite fairy tale. In all of its forms cute and childish cartoons to the more adult 2011 Little Red Riding hood movie to the Play into the woods, to the various oral stories written down by different authors to modern rewrites. Even before I was old enough to get the darker implications of the story there was just something chilling about a polite wolf who leads a little girl off the path with the intent to devour her and her sweet Granny.

While older versions of the story are more interested in what Red shouldn’t have done. As Charles Perrault himself puts at the end of his version of the story. “Moral; children especially attractive, well-bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may provide dinner for a wolf.” However in modern times we are far less interested in what rules were broken and ponder a much deeper question. Who exactly is the wolf?

The answer to this question depends entirely on the adaptation. The 2011 version really taps into this theme with the whole movie constantly playing with the audience. As Red riding hood is given reason to suspect almost everyone in her town of being the werewolf. I could honestly talk about who is the Wolf is in any one of the hundreds of adaptations of the tale.

However, I’m going to talk about the Wolf in one of my favorite modern fairy tale takes. I’m taking about a black comedy, postmodern film known as “Freeway” Freeway was a 1996 crime film starring Reese Wither spoon as the little Red Riding Hood character. A teenage girl named Vanessa Lutz who is a complete one eighty from the usual depiction since even most modern takes tend to go with the image of a wide eyed innocent. Whereas Vanessa is a foul mouthed, rough around the edges barely literate girl with a juvenile record. Which I will get back to the importance of this portrayal later.

Her mom is a prostitute and her step dad is a drug dealer both are arrested and Vanessa handcuffs her social worker Mrs. Sheet’s ankle to the bed. Then runs away intending to go to her grandmothers, rather than be put back into foster care. Vanessa gets a gun from her gang leader boyfriend Chopper a brief nod to the Brothers Grimm version. This is then followed by a polite dismissal of the source material in the form of Chopper being shot by a rival gang barely five seconds after Vanessa leaves. And because this story has no shame when it comes to admitting its inspiration was a fairy tale which is so refreshing in a world of edgy rated R films that are ashamed of their children’s media Zack Snyder films I’m looking at you.

Vanessa meets a guy called Bob Wolverton on the freeway after her car breaks down. Bob. So how is the Big Bad Wolf depicted in Freeway? Wolverton is a Councilor for Troubled boys he’s soothing and understanding offering not only to give Vanessa a lift but also buys her dinner and offers a listening ear to her problems. He’s clearly smart and talks to Vanessa in a sophisticated manner to the point where Vanessa feels the urge to apologize, for swearing in front of him during their first meeting. But as time goes on Wolverton starts to seem off. This is emphasized by him looming behind Vanessa really close as he presses her to “Work through her issues” later he tries to use her trauma to um get off.

When Vanessa screams at him to pull over his earlier attributes are presented in a more sinister light. His calm soothing manner is downright chilling since he never loses his cool even when threatening Vanessa while grabbing her by the hair. His intelligence becomes not only frightening but also reveals a kind of intellectual snobbery. When he tells Vanessa “Well that’s an open ended discussion, dealing with deep philosophical ramifications something you could hardly grasp” in a very condescending manner. Then proceeds to tell her “Take it from me a professional you’re an absolute f******** moron” When Vanessa asks him why he’s killing girls. Wolverton depicts himself as cleaning up society claiming “I call them garbage people and I assure you, you are one of them” However it’s interesting to note Bob’s monolog is not the only time we see this view from a character.

Earlier in the film we get a news report about a serial killer whose killing young runaways who happen to be prostitutes. Yet its Vanessa’s mother who is a prostitute is the one grabbed and handcuffed by the cops who are there to stake out whose selling sex rather than who’s killing sex workers. It seems whoever controls the police too wants to clean up society by cracking down on its less desirable members.

When Wolverton picks up Vanessa and gets her to open up she tells him about some of her bad experiences in the foster care system. “Bob, sometimes them places are ok but most of the time them people are just in it for the check that the state sends for your upkeep” Vanessa tells him. When Wolverton asks if one of her foster parents was punished for hitting her so hard she had to have her jaw wired shut for three months Vanessa scoffs and replies “Are you kidding a pillar of society like Mr. Morales?”

Later after Vanessa shoots him she gets arrested as a car jacker who put an upstanding citizen in the hospital. In a repeat of the Mr. Morales incident. Vanessa tells the detective’s the absolute truth about Bob being the I-5 killer but they don’t believe her. “Why didn’t you turn him in?” One of the detectives’s asked “I wanted to but that perv said it would be his word against mine” Vanessa responds. She talks about how one ever believes you once you’ve been in the system. The detectives question her about her criminal record and the second detective states smugly “Just doing what comes natural” in an echo of Wolverton’s earlier implications that Vanessa was a whore who manipulated men.

“Oh I’ve had my look councilor and I’ve been listening too” the female judge declares before saying she’s going to make sure 16 year old Vanessa is to be tried as an adult rather than a teenager. The head of juvenile facilities declares Vanessa a sociopath and diagnosis’s her as “ Too far gone to benefit from corrective behavior modification” Almost every adult in this movie repeats some form of Wolverton’s views on Vanessa they see her as dumb, dangerous, a little monster will never amount to anything.

”How dare the media talk about how horrible her life is. What about us?” Mimi Wolverton’s socialite wife says. Every adult character is this movie focuses on Vanessa’s language , bad temper and lack of book smarts and criminal changes when she was a minor to the point of dubbing her guilty before she walks into the courtroom. While Bob Wolverton is a respectable member of society with a high paying job. The kind of person that society gives value to so of course everyone takes his side even calling him a hero despite the fact he’s not fighting anything.

They may not be serial killers but they don’t exactly care about the quote garbage people the I-5 killer is removing from the streets and Freeway shows us this lack of concern from society does have its affects. In the beginning of the movies despite her juvenile record Vanessa has a kindness to her sure she cuffs her social worker but apologizes and turns her around. She also tells her exactly how to get out of the cuffs. The gun Vanessa is given by her boyfriend is meant to be sold to fund her trip not be used on anyone. And even after Bob makes his intentions to harm Vanessa clear and she realizes he’s the killer she says “ Mr. I’m a human being” at this point Vanessa despite her past of being abused thinks that she can reason with Wolverton perhaps because of the connection he created between them to gain her trust. She only pulls her gun on him when he makes it clear he can’t be reasoned with and even then she says “I’m gonna turn you over to the police” it’s not until he reminds her people like him don’t go to jail that she shoots him and afterwards Vanessa pukes and tells God to watch over her mom and Stepdad and she hopes “You doesn’t hate me anymore then you already do”

Vanessa even tells the police everything and is calm up until the second detective sneers at her for soliciting when she was younger then she yells racial slurs at him and tries to beat him with the chair. At the trial Vanessa is very nasty towards Bob crueler then even when she was pointing a gun at him. She knows she’s going to lose this trial and as she said earlier to the first detective “He didn’t say sorry, so I wanted to piss him off” about the second detective. Later in the juvenile detention center Vanessa states she’s going to escape and one of the other inmates asks “ What about the guards?” to which Vanessa says “ Only perverts would work in a place like this”

This is a change from the beginning of the movie where Vanessa didn’t question Mrs. Sheetz intentions or think twice about Wolverton having ulterior motives for giving her a ride. Now Vanessa thinks those who help people like her must have sinister intentions and why shouldn’t she? Wolverton was a counselor for troubled youth who told her she was worthless and wanted to hurt her just because she existed. Vanessa trusted the detectives to be fair enough to listen to her and they weren’t. Vanessa is let down time and time again to the point where she can only count on herself and other kids like her.

So it’s not surprising when Vanessa no longer cares when one of her fellow inmates kills the Juvenile detention center supervisor and even stabs a guard herself to make her escape, though she does not kill him. Freeway is trying to say when society stops caring about certain people then they lash out and eventually grow more callous towards others. Vanessa starts the movie fighting to have her humanity recognized and respected only to start to behave in a more monstrous manner toward the end of the movie. “Why are you doing this?” the guy she’s robbing asks “Because I’m pissed off and the whole world owes me. Now gimme your money” she orders.

While the detectives do discover the truth because when they investigate rather than dismiss Vanessa’s claims like before ,they realize there may be some truth to her story. They go to the Wolverton’s upper class house and find kiddie porn in Bob’s shed while his wife stands there in horror. “ Those were …….” She trails off unable to finish the sentence. While we ask ourselves who is the big bad wolf? Freeway warns us we may not like the answer to that question. It can lead to uncomfortable and even horrifying realizations.

You see Bob Wolverton is merely a reflection of the real Big Bad Wolf in this adaptation. A societal perception of personal value is the real Wolf in Sheep’s clothing. “Children, just like the Lutz girl we’ve been dying to see strapped in the gas chamber” says the second detective. This quote reminds us Vanessa is a child who the whole city wanted to see burn since she hurt a contributing member of society one of the upper class and no one listened when she tried to tell them Bob was a monster because it didn’t fit with their perception of the world. Vanessa is a one eighty from the wholesome image of little red riding hood popularized by the likes of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm because Freeway is not concerned with the “Well-bred young ladies” but the girls society would gladly devour.

Mimi kills herself after she finds her husband’s stash not because he’s the wolf but because she realizes Bob wasn’t the only one leading the hunt. She too was willing to feast on the flesh of a child along with all of Los Angeles. Freeway asks us to examine what human beings we do and don’t value and what exactly determines whose side we take when it comes to the law and whether it’s defined by physical evidence or our own biases and feelings toward said individual. So who is the wolf? According to this postmodern Little Red riding take we all have the potential to aid or even become the wolf willing to open its jaws and swallow little red rideing hood whole.

So do you agree or disagree? What did you think about Freeway as a Little red riding hood adaptation? And what's your favorite version of the story? What do you think about the Wolf? i'd love to hear from you. Leave me a comment below and lets discuss.


End file.
